It’s an incredibly busy week at Geek.com’s gaming division. As these Tidbits go to press, I’ll be on the floor at San Diego’s annual Comic-Con, checking out the huge variety of games (and game-related paraphernalia) on show. Next week will be busy as well, with lots of hands-on previews of big games like Left 4 Dead 2 and Halo: ODST coming soon.

To tide yourself over, have some delicious bits of fanboy-themed news from the world of gaming:

Starfox fans producing their own mod

Shadows of Lylat is a new production from a bunch of fans of Nintendo’s Starfox that got tired of waiting for The Big N to produce a new game in the space-combat/on-rails-shooter series. It’ll be built atop the FreeSpace Open engine, which is the open-sourced technology that drove the FreeSpace space combat shooter, which was spun off from the classic Descent series. This being a mod, it doesn’t have a whole lot of work done, or a release date, but there certainly is a teaser trailer. Watch the trailer, and enjoy the fantasy – then forget about it, because borrowing the Starfox IP will certainly result in this project getting “foxed” – mod-maker slang for “squished by Nintendo’s lawyers.” Indulge your furry-creature-starring space hero fantasies over at Kotaku or watch it above.

Metalocalypse getting its own game
Comic-Con will set the stage for the official announcement for a game based on Adult Swim’s cartoon for metalheads, Metalocalypse. Young studio Frozen Codebase (Elements of Destruction, Screwjumper!) is producing the downloadable Metalocalypse: Dethgame. Not much is known so far, but expect the details to be revealed – or perhaps incomprehensibly growled into the nearest microphone – this weekend. Thanks, Wall Street Journal.

The Beatles: Rock Band track list getting slowly released
We’re staying musical but getting a bit more mainstream for this one. Harmonix’s upcoming Beatles edition of Rock Band is getting a gradual reveal for its track list. Sound familiar? New to the list include classics “Paperback Writer” and “Revolution” in addition to the sure-to-be-a-sing-a-long “With A Little Help From My Friends.” The track list is currently at 25 over at Kotaku – we’ll see where the numbers stand next week.

Banned gamer sues Sony for violation of free speech, “pain and suffering”Resistance: Fall of Man player Erik Estavillo of San Jose, California, has sued Sony Computer Entertainment for banning his PlayStation Network account. “The ban is supposedly due to the behavior of the plaintiff when he plays the video game … which Sony owns and employs moderators for its online play. These moderators kick and ban players that they feel are deserving; though their biases to a player seem to be what determines the kick or ban,” reads the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court of California. Moreover, Estavillo has accused Sony of “stealing money” from him – that is, retaining the PlayStation Network account balance in the account that he’s banned from. He’s demanding $55,000 in punitive damages and is seeking an injunction on Sony from banning players. Get the full legal mumbo-jumbo from GamePolitics.Blake’s Take: Not saying Estavillo did so, but should you call someone a Mexican Jew Lizard in an online FPS, you deserve to suffer the consequences.

Investors encourage hating on Take-Two chairman Zelnick
Investment blog Market Rap has written a scathing review of Take-Two chairman Strauss Zelnick, who according to author Perry Rod has tragically mis-managed the company, much to shareholders’ detriment. To quote writer Rod:

“In a two year period, Mr Zelnick managed to, on three occasions, make vital statements that were within a matter of weeks proven to be either fabricated or just incredibly incompetent (or worse). Mr. Zelnick managed to resist and reject a buyout offer that was triple the company’s current share price while claiming other interested parties who never emerged. … His performance so far as an executive manager of a publicly traded company is one of the worst I have ever seen.”

This isn’t the first time Zelnick has publicly taken a beating, either. After the collapse of an imminent deal for Electronic Arts to acquire Take-Two last year, money man Jim Cramer put Zelnick on his TV show’s Wall of Shame. Should the Zelnick Firing Watch begin, GamePolitics will have the latest.

Spend the evening with Nobuo Uematsu
Nobuo Uematsu is the famed composer of the Final Fantasy series’ soundtracks, and among video game musicians he’s a household name. He’s huge. While he may be in charge of composing the Final Fantasy XIII soundtrack from the comfort of his own start-up, hired by Square Enix, he’s getting even busier on tour with Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy, a classical concert tour featuring a symphony orchestra specializing in tunes from the famous series of RPGs dating back more than 20 years. Amazingly, concerts for the series date back as far, too: the first Final Fantasy orchestral concert was in 1989. Wired spent an evening with Uematsu, as well as Distant Worlds organizer Arnie Roth, and the inside look at game music tours is an enthralling mix of geek and classique.

Professional Street Fighter IV players go at it

Last weekend, Las Vegas played host to the annual Evolution mega-tournament for fighting games. For fighting fans, no matter what the game, EVO (for short) is bigger than Wimbledon. Fans were hugely excited for this year’s flagship tournament, the first EVO to host Capcom’s Street Fighter IV. And the fans were pleased – it came down to an epic match-up between Japan’s Daigo Umehara and American Justin Wong. You can watch how it unfolded above.

That’s it for this week’s Tidbits. Expect a bonus edition to come from our Comic-Con coverage soon! In the meantime, this gaming writer is building up his sleep reserves before what’s sure to be a very intense weekend in San Diego.